This article explores the potential utility of the theory of Holism as developed by South African philosopher, British Commonwealth statesman and military leader, Jan Smuts, for philosophical counselling or practice. Central to the philosophical counseling process is philosophical counsellors or practitioners applying the work of philosophers to inspire, educate and guide their counselees in dealing with life problems. For example, Logic-Based Therapy, a method of philosophical counselling developed by Elliot Cohen, provides a rational framework for confronting problems of living, (...) where the counselor helps the counselee find an uplifting philosophy that promotes a guiding virtue that acts as an antidote to unrealistic and often self-defeating conclusions derived from irrational premises. We present the argument that Holism is one such uplifting philosophy which can be of utility to philosophical counselors or practitioners to help their counselees with confronting problems of living. Furthermore, we argue that Smuts’ articulation of freedom can act as a guiding virtue within this uplifting philosophy of Holism in accordance with the methodology of LBT. Smuts’ contribution to philosophy and psychology is arguably inadequately credited, and for this reason, and to the best of our knowledge, Smuts’ theory of Holism has yet to be discussed in the context of philosophical counseling or practice. Given these omissions, we begin this article with a discussion of his influence on 20th Century Anglo-American psychology. We then provide a brief historical context, and an introduction to the central argument of Smuts’ Holism, as well as a brief overview of the origins of Smut’s Holism and an introduction to his book Holism and Evolution. In the remainder of the article, we discuss several foundational concepts that underlie Smuts’ theory of Holism, as articulated and developed in his book Holism and Evolution, to substantiate our arguments. We conclude by highlighting the limitations of our article, limitations to Smuts’ model, and the challenges inherent in the use of a now largely antiquated theory, even by Smuts’ own admission nineteen years after its publication, for the purposes of contextualizing and substantiating the arguments and recommendations presented herein. (shrink)

The paper re-expresses arguments against the normative validity of expected utility theory in Robin Pope (1983, 1991a, 1991b, 1985, 1995, 2000, 2001, 2005, 2006, 2007). These concern the neglect of the evolving stages of knowledge ahead (stages of what the future will bring). Such evolution is fundamental to an experience of risk, yet not consistently incorporated even in axiomatised temporal versions of expected utility. Its neglect entails a disregard of emotional and financial effects on well-being before a (...) particular risk is resolved. These arguments are complemented with an analysis of the essential uniqueness property in the context of temporal and atemporal expected utility theory and a proof of the absence of a limit property natural in an axiomatised approach to temporal expected utility theory. Problems of the time structure of risk are investigated in a simple temporal framework restricted to a subclass of temporal lotteries in the sense of David Kreps and Evan Porteus (1978). This subclass is narrow but wide enough to discuss basic issues. It will be shown that there are serious objections against the modification of expected utility theory axiomatised by Kreps and Porteus (1978, 1979). By contrast the umbrella theory proffered by Pope that she has now termed SKAT, the Stages of Knowledge Ahead Theory, offers an epistemically consistent framework within which to construct particular models to deal with particular decision situations. A model by Caplin and Leahy (2001) will also be discussed and contrasted with the modelling within SKAT (Pope, Leopold and Leitner 2007). (shrink)

The value of knowledge can vary in that knowledge of important facts is more valuable than knowledge of trivialities. This variation in the value of knowledge is mirrored by a variation in evidential standards. Matters of greater importance require greater evidential support. But all knowledge, however trivial, needs to be evidentially certain. So on one hand we have a variable evidential standard that depends on the value of the knowledge, and on the other, we (...) have the invariant standard of evidential certainty. This paradox in the concept of knowledge runs deep in the history of philosophy. We approach this paradox by proposing a bet settlement theory of knowledge. Degrees of belief can be measured by the expected value of a bet divided by stake size, with the highest degree of belief being probability 1, or certainty. Evidence sufficient to settle the bet makes the expectation equal to the stake size and therefore has evidential probability 1. This gives us the invariant evidential certainty standard for knowledge. The value of knowledge relative to a bet is given by the stake size. We propose that evidential probability can vary with stake size, so that evidential certainty at low stakes does not entail evidential certainty at high stakes. This solves the paradox by allowing that certainty is necessary for knowledge at any stakes, but that the evidential standards for knowledge vary according to what is at stake. We give a Stake Size Variation Principle that calculates evidential probability from the value of evidence and the stakes. Stake size variant degrees of belief are probabilistically coherent and explain a greater range of preferences than orthodox expected utility theory, namely the Ellsberg and Allais preferences. The resulting theory of knowledge gives an empirically adequate, rationally grounded, unified account of evidence, value and probability. (shrink)

Marine and coastal ecosystems are crucial in maintaining human livelihood, facilitating social development, and reducing climate change impacts. Studies have examined how the benefit perception of aquatic ecosystems, knowledge, and emotion about climate change affect peoples’ support for marine protection. However, their interaction effects remain understudied. The current study explores the intricate interaction effect of the benefit perception of aquatic ecosystems, knowledge, and worry about climate change on marine protection support. Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics was employed on (...) a dataset of 709 stakeholders from 42 countries generated by MaCoBioS—a research project funded by the European Commission Horizon 2020. The statistical analysis shows that the impacts of benefit perception of ocean ecosystems, knowledge, and worry about climate change on marine protection support vary due to their interactions. Specifically, when stakeholders perceive ocean ecosystems to have little utility in mitigating climate change, greater climate change knowledge and concern are associated with a higher level of marine protection support. Nevertheless, in the scenarios where stakeholders perceive the benefits of ocean ecosystems, the effect of climate change knowledge becomes conditional on the worry level. If stakeholders are concerned about climate change, those with a greater level of climate change knowledge will associate with a higher level of marine protection support. Otherwise, greater climate change knowledge will result in lower support. These findings highlight emotion’s importance in directing climate change knowledge’s effect on marine protection support. Linking people’s “objects of care” to the consequences of climate change can help improve climate change communication effectiveness. (shrink)

According to the thesis of divine ‘middle knowledge’, first propounded by the Jesuit theologian Luis de Molina in the sixteenth century, subjunctive conditionals stating how free agents would freely respond under counter-factual conditions may be straightforwardly true, and thus serve as the objects of divine knowledge. This thesis has provoked considerable controversy, and the recent revival of interest in middle knowledge, initiated by Anthony Kenny, Robert Adams and Alvin Plantinga in the 1970s, has led to two ongoing (...) debates. One is a theoretical debate over the very intelligibility of middle knowledge;1 the other is a practical debate over its philosophical and theological utility.2. (shrink)

A newborn baby is an infant within the first 28 days of birth. Diagnosis and treatment of infant diseases require specialized medical resources and expert knowledge. However, there is a shortage of such professionals globally, particularly in low-income countries. To address this challenge, a knowledge-based system was designed to aid in the diagnosis and treatment of neonatal diseases. The system utilizes both machine learning and health expert knowledge, and a hybrid data mining process model was used to (...) extract knowledge from a clinical dataset. The PART algorithm achieved the highest performance result with 98.06% accuracy under 10-fold cross-validation, and the generated rules were used to develop the knowledge-based system. The system achieved 90.9% accuracy in system performance testing and 89.2% in user acceptance testing, and is intended to serve as an assistant tool for healthcare experts. (shrink)

Is knowledge necessary or sufficient or both necessary and sufficient for acceptable practical reasoning and rational action? Several authors (e.g., Williamson, Hawthorne, and Stanley) have recently argued that the answer to these questions is positive. In this paper I present several objections against this view (both in its basic form as well in more developed forms). I also offer a sketch of an alternative view: What matters for the acceptability of practical reasoning in at least many cases (and in (...) all the cases discussed by the defenders of a strong link between knowledge and practical reasoning) is not so much knowledge but expected utility. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt to understand how social knowledge affects human economic decision making. The paper discusses the nature of social knowledge in today’s context with special reference to how social knowledge influences consumers’ sentiments and their economic decisions. Social networks are being continuously flooded with various kinds of information and disinformation. Some of the information becomes knowledge for social network users who browse various kinds of content that are either entertaining or related to products (...) and marketing. Although reliability remains a critical issue regarding online information from social networks, it, however, provides some knowledge about diverse things, goods, and products being in use in different societies around the world. Some products advertised on social networks like Facebook may affect consumer decisions or provide information about new products. This paper presents a formal discussion on what social knowledge is and how it is originated, and what use it might have for such consumers. The paper designs a simplistic mathematical model for a theoretical understanding of the assumption that has practical implications regarding its utility in society. It is found that social networks generate enough social information that can influence user choice and preferences. The study has implications for both the users and the developers of social networking sites. (shrink)

Several philosophers have proposed Knowledge-Based Decision Theories (KDTs)—theories that require agents to maximize expected utility as yielded by utility and probability functions that depend on the agent’s knowledge. Proponents of KDTs argue that such theories are motivated by Knowledge-Reasons norms that require agents to act only on reasons that they know. However, no formal derivation of KDTs from Knowledge-Reasons norms has been suggested, and it is not clear how such norms justify the particular ways (...) in which KDTs relate knowledge and rational action. In this paper, I suggest a new axiomatic method for justifying KDTs and providing them with stronger normative foundations. I argue that such theories may be derived from constraints on the relation between knowledge and preference, and that these constraints may be evaluated relative to intuitions regarding practical reasoning. To demonstrate this, I offer a representation theorem for a KDT proposed by Hawthorne and Stanley (2008) and briefly evaluate it through its underlying axioms. -/- In section 1, I present knowledge-based decision theories generally and the versions of such theories suggested in the literature. In section 2, I argue that KDTs and theories of practical reasoning conjoined with Knowledge-Reasons norms generate constraints on the same relation—the relation between knowledge and preference. In section 3, I present a formal framework in which constraints on this relation may be expressed and from which KDTs may be derived. In section 4, I present a representation theorem for a specific KDT. In section 5, I briefly evaluate the axioms of the theory, and in section 6, I conclude. (shrink)

This monographic chapter explains how expected utility (EU) theory arose in von Neumann and Morgenstern, how it was called into question by Allais and others, and how it gave way to non-EU theories, at least among the specialized quarters of decion theory. I organize the narrative around the idea that the successive theoretical moves amounted to resolving Duhem-Quine underdetermination problems, so they can be assessed in terms of the philosophical recommendations made to overcome these problems. I actually follow Duhem's (...) recommendation, which was essentially to rely on the passing of time to make many experiments and arguments available, and evebntually strike a balance between competing theories on the basis of this improved knowledge. Although Duhem's solution seems disappointingly vague, relying as it does on "bon sens" to bring an end to the temporal process, I do not think there is any better one in the philosophical literature, and I apply it here for what it is worth. In this perspective, EU theorists were justified in resisting the first attempts at refuting their theory, including Allais's in the 50s, but they would have lacked "bon sens" in not acknowledging their defeat in the 80s, after the long process of pros and cons had sufficiently matured. This primary Duhemian theme is actually combined with a secondary theme - normativity. I suggest that EU theory was normative at its very beginning and has remained so all along, and I express dissatisfaction with the orthodox view that it could be treated as a straightforward descriptive theory for purposes of prediction and scientific test. This view is usually accompanied with a faulty historical reconstruction, according to which EU theorists initially formulated the VNM axioms descriptively and retreated to a normative construal once they fell threatened by empirical refutation. From my historical study, things did not evolve in this way, and the theory was both proposed and rebutted on the basis of normative arguments already in the 1950s. The ensuing, major problem was to make choice experiments compatible with this inherently normative feature of theory. Compability was obtained in some experiments, but implicitly and somewhat confusingly, for instance by excluding overtly incoherent subjects or by creating strong incentives for the subjects to reflect on the questions and provide answers they would be able to defend. I also claim that Allais had an intuition of how to combine testability and normativity, unlike most later experimenters, and that it would have been more fruitful to work from his intuition than to make choice experiments of the naively empirical style that flourished after him. In sum, it can be said that the underdetermination process accompanying EUT was resolved in a Duhemian way, but this was not without major inefficiencies. To embody explicit rationality considerations into experimental schemes right from the beginning would have limited the scope of empirical research, avoided wasting resources to get only minor findings, and speeded up the Duhemian process of groping towards a choice among competing theories. (shrink)

to appear in Lambert, E. and J. Schwenkler (eds.) Transformative Experience (OUP) -/- L. A. Paul (2014, 2015) argues that the possibility of epistemically transformative experiences poses serious and novel problems for the orthodox theory of rational choice, namely, expected utility theory — I call her argument the Utility Ignorance Objection. In a pair of earlier papers, I responded to Paul’s challenge (Pettigrew 2015, 2016), and a number of other philosophers have responded in similar ways (Dougherty, et al. (...) 2015, Harman 2015) — I call our argument the Fine-Graining Response. Paul has her own reply to this response, which we might call the Authenticity Reply. But Sarah Moss has recently offered an alternative reply to the Fine-Graining Response on Paul’s behalf (Moss 2017) — we’ll call it the No Knowledge Reply. This appeals to the knowledge norm of action, together with Moss’ novel and intriguing account of probabilistic knowledge. In this paper, I consider Moss’ reply and argue that it fails. I argue first that it fails as a reply made on Paul’s behalf, since it forces us to abandon many of the features of Paul’s challenge that make it distinctive and with which Paul herself is particularly concerned. Then I argue that it fails as a reply independent of its fidelity to Paul’s intentions. (shrink)

The thought experiment is a seemingly indispensable tool in the armchair philosopher’s toolbox. One wonders, for example, how philosophers could come to think that justified true belief isn’t knowledge, that reference isn’t determined by an expression’s associated description, or that moral responsibility doesn’t require the ability to do otherwise, without the use of thought experiments. But even if thought experiments play an integral role in philosophical methodology, their legitimacy is at least initially puzzling: one would think that significant (...) class='Hi'>knowledge of the world requires extensive empirical investigation. But since thought experiments are done from the armchair, how can they tell us about the world? -/- A standard account of the nature and utility of thought experiments provides an answer to this question, and in a way that fits naturally with a standard picture of the nature of the facts philosophers investigate: Philosophers are about the business of investigating the essences of things and kinds. But a thing’s essential and accidental properties are modal properties. Thus, one can discern a thing’s essence by discovering its modal profile. But if so, then thought experiments are naturally suited as tools for the armchair philosopher. For thought experiments shed light on modal facts. Therefore, since philosophers investigate essences, facts about essence are modal facts, and the thought experiment is one of the few tools they have for discerning such facts, thought experiments play a legitimate and indispensable role in philosophical methodology. In my dissertation, I argue that the standard account of the nature and utility of thought experiments is inadequate, and sketch a more promising account. -/- First, I argue that our knowledge of possibility is restricted to the relatively humdrum. And if so, then since the standard account ties the utility of thought experiments to our knowledge of possibility, too many thought experiments will be ruled out as useless, which raises serious concerns about the significance, and perhaps even the legitimacy, of armchair philosophy. Thus, there is pressure for armchair philosophers to reject the standard account. -/- Second, I sketch an alternative picture of the nature of facts philosophers investigate – one that’s more fine-grained than the standard modal-profile picture. Relatedly, I sketch a correspondingly fine-grained semantics for claims about such facts. This alternative picture underwrites the legitimacy of a hitherto underappreciated sort of thought experiment, which I call the non-modal thought experiment. Such thought experiments shed light on facts about the world that are more fine-grained than what can be discerned by merely examining their modal profiles. I argue that non-modal thought experiments often succeed at just the points where the more familiar modal thought experiments fail, and thus that the two are naturally suited to complement one another in the philosopher’s practice. -/- Finally, I exploit the points mentioned above to sketch an account of the variety and utility of thought experiments that’s much more nuanced than that of the standard account. I then illustrate some of its virtues by indicating its ability to account for a wide range of epistemically forceful thought experiments – both humdrum and exotic –, and by demonstrating how it can be used to make progress in debates that have reached a stalemate due to conflicting modal intuitions. -/- . (shrink)

This book concerns the foundations of epistemic modality and hyperintensionality and their applications to the philosophy of mathematics. David Elohim examines the nature of epistemic modality, when the modal operator is interpreted as concerning both apriority and conceivability, as well as states of knowledge and belief. The book demonstrates how epistemic modality and hyperintensionality relate to the computational theory of mind; metaphysical modality and hyperintensionality; the types of mathematical modality and hyperintensionality; to the epistemic status of large cardinal axioms, (...) undecidable propositions, and abstraction principles in the philosophy of mathematics; to the modal and hyperintensional profiles of the logic of rational intuition; and to the types of intention, when the latter is interpreted as a hyperintensional mental state. Chapter \textbf{2} argues for a novel type of expressivism based on the duality between the categories of coalgebras and algebras, and argues that the duality permits of the reconciliation between modal and hyperintensional cognitivism and modal and hyperintensional expressivism. Elohim develops a novel, topic-sensitive truthmaker semantics for dynamic epistemic logic, and develop a novel, dynamic two-dimensional semantics grounded in two-dimensional hyperintensional Turing machines. Chapter \textbf{3} provides an abstraction principle for epistemic (hyper-)intensions. Chapter \textbf{4} advances a topic-sensitive two-dimensional truthmaker semantics, and provides three novel interpretations of the framework along with the epistemic and metasemantic. Chapter \textbf{5} applies the fixed points of the modal $\mu$-calculus in order to account for the iteration of epistemic states in a single agent, by contrast to availing of modal axiom 4 (i.e. the KK principle). The fixed point operators in the modal $\mu$-calculus are rendered hyperintensional, which yields the first hyperintensional construal of the modal $\mu$-calculus in the literature and the first application of the calculus to the iteration of epistemic states in a single agent instead of the common knowledge of a group of agents. Chapter \textbf{6} advances a solution to the Julius Caesar problem based on Fine's `criterial' identity conditions which incorporate conditions on essentiality and grounding. Chapter \textbf{7} provides a ground-theoretic regimentation of the proposals in the metaphysics of consciousness and examines its bearing on the two-dimensional conceivability argument against physicalism. The topic-sensitive epistemic two-dimensional truthmaker semantics developed in chapters \textbf{2} and \textbf{4} are availed of in order for epistemic states to be a guide to metaphysical states in the hyperintensional setting. -/- Chapters \textbf{8-12} provide cases demonstrating how the two-dimensional hyperintensions of hyperintensional, i.e. topic-sensitive epistemic two-dimensional truthmaker, semantics, solve the access problem in the epistemology of mathematics. Chapter \textbf{8} examines the interaction between Elohim's hyperintensional semantics and the axioms of epistemic set theory, large cardinal axioms, the Epistemic Church-Turing Thesis, the modal axioms governing the modal profile of $\Omega$-logic, Orey sentences such as the Generalized Continuum Hypothesis, and absolute decidability. These results yield inter alia the first hyperintensional Epistemic Church-Turing Thesis and hyperintensional epistemic set theories in the literature. Chapter \textbf{9} examines the modal and hyperintensional commitments of abstractionism, in particular necessitism, and epistemic hyperintensionality, epistemic utility theory, and the epistemology of abstraction. Elohim countenances a hyperintensional semantics for novel epistemic abstractionist modalities. Elohim suggests, too, that higher observational type theory can be applied to first-order abstraction principles in order to make first-order abstraction principles recursively enumerable, i.e. Turing machine computable, and that the truth of the first-order abstraction principle for two-dimensional hyperintensions is grounded in its being possibly recursively enumerable and the machine being physically implementable. Chapter \textbf{10} examines the philosophical significance of hyperintensional $\Omega$-logic in set theory and discusses the hyperintensionality of metamathematics. Chapter \textbf{11} provides a modal logic for rational intuition and provides a hyperintensional semantics. Chapter \textbf{12} avails of modal coalgebras to interpret the defining properties of indefinite extensibility, and avails of hyperintensional epistemic two-dimensional semantics in order to account for the interaction between interpretational and objective modalities and the truthmakers thereof. This yields the first hyperintensional category theory in the literature. Elohim invents a new mathematical trick in which first-order structures are treated as categories, and Vopenka's principle can be satisfied because of the elementary embeddings between the categories and generate Vopenka cardinals in the category of Set in category theory. Chapter \textbf{13} examines modal responses to the alethic paradoxes. Elohim provides a counter-example to epistemic closure for logical deduction. Chapter \textbf{14} examines, finally, the modal and hyperintensional semantics for the different types of intention and the relation of the latter to evidential decision theory. (shrink)

The significance of and the role played by Knowledge Management (KM) is ever increasing in today's business and organizational decision-making environment. This paper attempts to underline the importance of organizing knowledge not for its own sake, but for its efficient use in organizational decision making. The tremendous explosion of knowledge resources, both electronic and conventional, within the last few decades calls for an understanding of how knowledge is organized for management of data and information. This is (...) so for the reason that they can be proficiently employed to create value and utility. This also calls for a search for 'relevance' in KM with regard to its situated nature in different contexts within which knowledge is situated, and that which nevertheless indirectly refers to its ontological scaffolding. We have devised two simple mathematical models of reference with regard to the design of the systems mostly intended for organizing knowledge in knowledge organizations for its most efficient utilization. The model specifies several unique scenarios aided by discovery of arguments related to its ontological framework within which knowledge is situated. Several contexts were drawn to draw inferences from the research study. The results bear relevance to knowledge managers who make important decisions for realization of organizational goals and objectives. (shrink)

The discrepancy between individual women and the stereotypes attributed to the group as a ‎whole has become progressively greater and more explicit over the course of history. The stereotypes remain the same age-old ‎allegations whilst the ‎developments in the occupations of women and the traits they have opportunity to express have increased the distance between women and those ascribed traits. Stereotypes’ abstention from revision in light of contrary evidence constitutes an epistemic paradox for it entails conflict between the stereotypical (...) class='Hi'>knowledge and empirical evidence, as well as between the stereotypical knowledge and other empirical knowledges. This paradox of stubbornness also raises the question as to the epistemic source of stereotypes. For, people at young ages encounter evidence which should have formed a more complex knowledge regarding women rather than the pervasive stereotypical knowledge. It is this extremity of absurdness of stereotypes regarding women that is utile to understanding stereotypes as a whole. The epistemic paradox that is engrained in all stereotypes is exposed uncompromisingly by this group. The paradox cannot be dismissed with excuses of having a small basis of evidence, such as may be said regarding other social groups with which one may have had minimal or no contact. Thus, stereotypes of women provide a limit case to understanding the epistemology of this paradoxical form of knowledge. The traits and epistemic phenomena which render stereotypes epistemically puzzling and intriguing is the relationship between knowledges. Stereotypical knowledge regarding women as a group conflict with one’s experience-founded knowledges of particular women, deeming the corporate body of knowledge incoherent. Quine’s theory of knowledge, with its holistic empirical approach endorsing conceptual schemes, provides fertile ground for this analysis. The novelty in his account is his establishment of the criteria of coherency, which shifts the focal point of epistemic inquiry away from the adequacy of individual knowledges with empirical evidence to the intra-knowledge relationships themselves. In his empiricism, Quine rather examines the interactions between knowledges and the overarching coherence of the body of knowledge as a holistic unit. Quine creates place in his account for mechanism which provide for the epistemic incongruences of stubbornness and conflict found between stereotypical knowledges and empirical evidence. These very mechanisms are what this paper requests to examine. Quine, ultimately, formulates knowledge as a collectively held fabric consisting of relations and of posits – socially constructed mechanisms which are empirically-irreducible and implemented pragmatically for the organisation of empirical evidence. According to Quine, the fabric formation is a conceptual scheme sourced in social heritage. People are bestowed with an eclectic framework of ‎knowledge to pragmatically merge between an inherited, collective conceptual scheme and the personally experienced empirical evidence. This paper will delve into Quine’s fabric of knowledge, its relations, and inner-mechanisms. The finding of stereotypes to be an age-old posit entrenched pragmatically – thus stubbornly – in the collective conceptual scheme, will explain the epistemic paradoxes they entail and offer insight to their revision in light of empiric reality and its women. (shrink)

Causation has always been a philosophically controversial subject matter. While David Hume’s empiricist account of causation has been the dominant influence in analytic philosophy and science during modern times, a minority view has instead connected causation essentially to agency and manipulation. A related approach has for the first time gained widespread popularity in recent years, due to new powerful theories of causal inference in science that are based in a technical notion of intervention, and James Woodward’s closely connected interventionist theory (...) of causation in philosophy. This monograph assesses five manipulationist or interventionist theories of causation, viewed as theories that purport to tell us what causation is by providing us with the meaning of causal claims. It is shown that they cannot do this, as the conditions on causation that they impose are too weak, mainly due to ineliminable circularities in their definitions of causal terms. It is then argued that a subset of Woodward’s theory can nevertheless contribute crucially to an explanation of the unique role that manipulation has in our acquisition of causal knowledge. This explanation differs from the common regularist explanation of the epistemic utility of manipulation and experiment, and it is taken to confirm several important manipulationist intuitions. However, the success of the explanation depends on (this subset of) interventionism not itself being understood as a theory of causation, but as a theory of intervention. (shrink)

In recent years, the idea has been gaining ground that our traditional conceptions of knowledge and cognition are unduly limiting, in that they privilege what goes on inside the ‘skin and skull’ of an individual reasoner. Instead, it has been argued, knowledge and cognition need to be understood as embodied, situated, and extended. Whether these various interrelations and dependencies are ‘merely’ causal, or are in a more fundamental sense constitutive of knowledge and cognition, is as much a (...) matter of controversy as the degree to which they pose a challenge to ‘traditional’ conceptions of cognition, knowledge and the mind. In this paper we argue that when the idea of ‘extendedness’ is applied to a core concept in epistemology and the philosophy of science—namely, scientific evidence—things appear to be on a much surer footing. The evidential status of data gathered through extended processes—including its utility as justification or warrant—do not seem to be weakened by virtue of being extended, but instead are often strengthened because of it. Indeed, it is often precisely by virtue of this extendedness that scientific evidence grounds knowledge claims, which individuals may subsequently ascribe to themselves. The functional equivalence between machine-based gathering, filtering, and processing of data and human interpretation and assessment is the crucial factor in deciding whether evidence has been gathered, rather than the distinction between intra- and extracranial processes or individual and social processes. To prioritize biological processes here, and to assert the superiority of human cognitive capacities seems both arbitrary and unwarranted with respect to gathering evidence, and ultimately would lead to an unattractive skepticism about many of the methods used in science to gather evidence. In other words, conceiving of scientific evidence as ‘impersonal’ not only better captures the character of evidence-gathering in practice, but also makes sense of a large amount of evidence-gathering that ‘personal’ accounts fail to either acknowledge or accurately describe. Whilst we suggest it is likely that all internally-distributed evidence-gathering processes are merely contingently internal processes, a significant number of externally-distributed evidence-gathering processes are necessarily externally-distributed. Some evidence can only be gathered by extended epistemic agents. (shrink)

Everyone agrees that we can’t change the past. But what about the future? Though the thought that we can change the future is familiar from popular discourse, it enjoys virtually no support from philosophers, contemporary or otherwise. In this paper, I argue that the thesis that the future is mutable has far more going for it than anyone has yet realized. The view, I hope to show, gains support from the nature of prevention, can provide a new way of responding (...) to arguments for fatalism, can account for the utility of total knowledge of the future, and can help in providing an account of the semantics of the English progressive. On the view developed, the future is mutable in the following sense: perhaps, once, it was true that you would never come to read a paper defending the mutability of the future. And then the future changed. And now you will. (shrink)

Does Seneca entirely reject the utility of dialectical study for moral improvement? No, I argue here. Focusing on Letter 87, I propose that Seneca raises and disarms objections to formal Stoic arguments in order to help moral progressors avoid backsliding and advance towards ethical knowledge. I trace this method back to Chrysippus and show that reading Letter 87 in this Chrysippean framework yields a satisfying explanation of its otherwise puzzling features.

We discuss recent progress in the development of cognitive ontologies and summarize three challenges in the coordinated development and application of these resources. Challenge 1 is to adopt a standardized definition for cognitive processes. We describe three possibilities and recommend one that is consistent with the standard view in cognitive and biomedical sciences. Challenge 2 is harmonization. Gaps and conflicts in representation must be resolved so that these resources can be combined for mark-up and interpretation of multi-modal data. Finally, Challenge (...) 3 is to test the utility of these resources for large-scale annotation of data, search and query, and knowledge discovery and integration. As term definitions are tested and revised, harmonization should enable coordinated updates across ontologies. However, the true test of these definitions will be in their community-wide adoption which will test whether they support valid inferences about psychological and neuroscientific data. (shrink)

In the first part of this two-part work, the economics of higher education are explained. It is made clear how a university’s business model differs from that of a company that has to compete on the open market. On this basis, it is explained: -/- (i)Why universities are in no way threatened by low retention-rates and graduation-rates; (ii)Why universities cannot significantly improve or otherwise alter the quality of their educational services without imperiling their very existences; (iii)Why universities do not have (...) to improve the quality of their educational services; (iv)Why universities couldn’t improve the quality of their services even if they wanted to; (v)Why the fact that many universities have low retention- and graduation-rates does not a represent a business opportunity, or opportunity of any other kind, for anyone, whether inside or outside of academia; and (vi)Why principles of Knowledge Management (KM) that are so useful when it comes to helping businesses that compete on the open market are completely useless, and indeed of negative utility, when it comes to helping universities solve their problems. -/- In the second part of this work, it is explained how to construct an online university that is both lucrative and also provides instruction that is faster, better, cheaper, and more useful than the instruction provided by any existing (or possible) brick-and-mortar university. Finally, it is explained how the principles of KM can be used to optimize such a university, once it is up and running. (shrink)

Leibniz is commonly labeled a foe of Molinism. His rejection of robust libertarian freedom coupled with some explicit passages in which he distances himself from the doctrine of middle knowledge seem to justify this classification. In this paper, I argue that this standard view is not quite correct. I identify the two substantive tenets of Molinism. First, the connection between the conditions for free actions and these free actions is a contingent one: free actions follow contingently from their sufficient (...) conditions. Second, God knows what creatures would freely do in different possible circumstances prevolitionally—that is, prior to God willing anything. I argue that Leibniz himself endorses a version of both tenets and utilizes them for theoretical purposes similar to those of Molinists. I conclude that Leibniz is much closer to Molinism than is typically acknowledged. Leibniz is best characterized as a friend—rather than a foe—of Molinism. (shrink)

In “The Possibility of Epistemic Nudging” (2021), I address a phenomenon that is widely neglected in the current literature on nudges: intentional doxastic nudging, i.e. people’s intentional influence over other people’s beliefs, rather than over their choices. I argue that, at least in brute cases, nudging is not giving reasons, but rather bypasses reasoning altogether. More specifically, nudging utilizes psychological heuristics and the nudged person’s biases in smart ways. The goal of my paper is to defend the claim that nudging, (...) even when it bypasses reasoning, can result in justified beliefs and knowledge. As I argue, it takes two things to accomplish this goal: suitable meta-epistemological views and appropriate circumstances. If a broadly reliabilist account of justified beliefs and knowledge is correct, and if the relevant belief-forming methods are externally individuated in the right way, then nudging to knowledge is possible. If, in addition, the nudger is knowledgeable, epistemically benevolent and systematically effective, then nudging to knowledge will become reality. In their replies Neil Levy (2021) and Jonathan Matheson and Valerie Joly Chock (2021), put pressure on my argument from different angles. Levy thinks that a better case can be made for his view that nudging is giving testimonial reasons, and finds my objections to this view unconvincing. Matheson and Joly Chock, on the other hand, point out that acquiring knowledge through nudging (i.e. epistemic nudging) is compatible with evidentialism, even if nudging is not giving reasons. On their view, evidentialism provides an explanation of epistemic nudging that is superior to my own account, which, according to them, also suffers from a number of counterintuitive consequences. I am grateful to my critics for raising these concerns, because considering them deepens our perspective on the target phenomenon, and has made me think harder about the relevant epistemological issues. Nevertheless, I am convinced that my core claims can be defended against these criticisms. (shrink)

Abstract: This study explores some theoretical issues in scientific research such as, the nature of experimentation and problems of methodology in scientific practice as well as the question of truth, rationality, objectivity and utility of scientific discoveries. The paper discusses a number of theorizing that have emerged in response to the challenge raised by the above concerns. Epistemological models of science from critical rationalists, like Popper, Kuhn, Feyerabend and the neo-pragmatic methodological orientation of Arthur Fine’s Natural Ontological Attitude (NOA) (...) to Science, have been adopted as points of discussion on what science as an empirical discipline entail. The paper concludes that a rigorous epistemological discussion on the methodology of scientific inquiry is a desideratum for the progress of science. (shrink)

Recent third person approaches to thought experiments and conceptual analysis through the method of surveys are motivated by and motivate skepticism about the traditional first person method. I argue that such surveys give no good ground for skepticism, that they have some utility, but that they do not represent a fundamentally new way of doing philosophy, that they are liable to considerable methodological difficulties, and that they cannot be substituted for the first person method, since the a priori (...) class='Hi'>knowledge which is our object in conceptual analysis can be acquired only from the first person standpoint. (shrink)

Migraine is a complex neurological disorder characterized by recurrent moderate to severe headaches, accompanied by additional symptoms such as nausea, sensitivity to light and sound, and visual disturbances. Accurate and timely diagnosis of migraines is crucial for effective management and treatment. However, the diverse range of symptoms and overlapping characteristics with other headache disorders pose challenges in the diagnostic process. In this research, we propose the development of an expert system for migraine diagnosis using artificial intelligence and the CLIPS (C (...) Language Integrated Production System) framework. The expert system utilizes a rule-based inference engine to analyze patient-reported symptoms and provide reliable diagnoses or probability scores indicating the likelihood of migraine. The knowledge base of the expert system is designed based on expert knowledge obtained from medical professionals specializing in migraines. The collected knowledge is translated into a structured format suitable for the CLIPS inference engine, incorporating rules and facts to represent the diagnostic criteria and associated symptoms. The system prompts users to provide relevant information about their symptoms, medical history, and potential triggers. It applies the defined rules and facts to evaluate the likelihood of migraine and generate accurate diagnoses or probability scores. Preliminary evaluation results demonstrate the potential of the expert system as a valuable tool for diagnosing migraines. A dataset of anonymized patient records with confirmed migraine cases was used to test the system. The diagnoses generated by the expert system were compared against the known diagnoses, and a high level of accuracy was observed, with 90% of cases correctly diagnosed as migraines. These results highlight the effectiveness and reliability of the system in assisting medical professionals in the diagnosis of migraines. The proposed expert system offers several advantages for migraine diagnosis. It leverages the collective knowledge and expertise of experienced migraine specialists, providing a standardized and consistent approach to diagnosis. The system can handle large amounts of patient data and effectively analyse complex relationships between symptoms, risk factors, and diagnostic criteria. Furthermore, it offers real-time feedback and recommendations, supporting medical professionals in their clinical decision-making process. Future work involves refining the expert system based on feedback from medical experts, expanding the knowledge base to encompass a wider range of symptoms and risk factors, and conducting further evaluations to enhance its accuracy and applicability in clinical settings. The development of an expert system for migraine diagnosis has the potential to improve the diagnostic process, leading to more effective management and treatment strategies for individuals suffering from migraines. (shrink)

There has been considerable discussion recently of consequentialist justifications of epistemic norms. In this paper, I shall argue that these justifications are not justifications. The consequentialist needs a value theory, a theory of the epistemic good. The standard theory treats accuracy as the fundamental epistemic good and assumes that it is a good that calls for promotion. Both claims are mistaken. The fundamental epistemic good involves accuracy, but it involves more than just that. The fundamental epistemic good is knowledge, (...) not mere true belief, because the goodness of an epistemic state is connected to that state's ability to give us reasons. If I'm right about the value theory, this has a number of significant implications for the consequentialist project. First, the good-making features that attach to valuable full beliefs are not features of partial belief. The resulting value theory does not give us the values we need to give consequentialist justifications of credal norms. Second, the relevant kind of good does not call for promotion. It is good to know, but the rational standing of a belief is not determined by the belief's location in a ranked set of options. In the paper's final section, I explain why the present view is a kind of teleological non-consequentialism. There is a kind of good that is prior to the right, but as the relevant kind of good does not call for promotion the value theory shows us what is wrong with the consequentialist project. (shrink)

Despite the recent proliferation of scientific, clinical, and narrative accounts of auditory verbal hallucinations, the phenomenology of voice hearing remains opaque and undertheorized. In this article, we outline an interdisciplinary approach to understanding hallucinatory experiences which seeks to demonstrate the value of the humanities and social sciences to advancing knowledge in clinical research and practice. We argue that an interdisciplinary approach to the phenomenology of AVH utilizes rigorous and context-appropriate methodologies to analyze a wider range of first-person accounts of (...) AVH at 3 contextual levels: cultural, social, and historical; experiential; and biographical. We go on to show that there are significant potential benefits for voice hearers, clinicians, and researchers. These include informing the development and refinement of subtypes of hallucinations within and across diagnostic categories; “front-loading” research in cognitive neuroscience; and suggesting new possibilities for therapeutic intervention. In conclusion, we argue that an interdisciplinary approach to the phenomenology of AVH can nourish the ethical core of scientific enquiry by challenging its interpretive paradigms, and offer voice hearers richer, potentially more empowering ways to make sense of their experiences. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Francis Bacon and René Descartes have traditionally been presented as leaders of opposed philosophical currents. However, more and more studies show important continuities between their philosophies. This article explores one of them: their perspectives on medicine. The dominion over nature and the instinct for self-preservation are the central elements of the theoretical framework within which they inserted their assessments of medicine. Medicine is valued as the most outstanding discipline for its benefits for the care of the human being. Departing (...) from this start-point, one finds further coincidences about the status, practice, and reform of medicine. (shrink)

The aim of the Nordic Network for the Archaeology and Archaeobotany of Gardening (NTAA), as it was phrased those first days in Alnarp in the beginning of March 2010, is to: ”bring researchers together from different disciplines to discuss the history, archaeology, archaeobotany and cultivation of gardens and plants”. We had no idea, then, how widely appreciated this initiative would become. The fifth seminar in five years was held on Visingsö June 1-3, 2014 and the sixth seminar will take place (...) in Kristiansand, Norway, June 12-14, 2015. We are very pleased to be able to publish this report, Sources to the History of Gardening: Four Interdisciplinary Seminars 2010–2013, Arranged By the Nordic Network for the Archaeology and Archaeobotany of Gardening (NTAA), based on the first four themes and seminars, in total 26 articles. Most of them origins from one of the seminar contributions 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013 respectively. However, the editorial group has taken the opportunity, with the aim of the network in mind, to add supplementing contributions on some subjects. The articles are arranged in four themes according to the themes of the seminars. The first theme Archaeological Sources to the History of Gardens and the Cultural Landscape is linked to the first seminar in Alnarp, Sweden, 2010 which had a focus on method, the important connections between archaeology and archaeobotany and the interesting progress within garden archaeology during the last decade. The second theme Cabbage Patches and Kitchen Gardens deals with the second seminar in Norrköping, Sweden, 2011. Its focus was on historical, cultural geographical, archaeological and archaeobotanical research concerning utility gardens or kitchen gardens as well as the concept ‘kålgård’ (cabbage patch or kale yard), its shape and content over time. The third theme Cultural and Garden plants: Under Ground, Above Ground, In Herbariums and Archives connects to the third seminar in Uppsala, Sweden, 2012. It focused on sources, source criticism and interdisciplinary research to gain knowledge on the history of garden cultivation and cultural plants. The articles discuss, among other things, herbariums, written sources, DNA and molecular markers, pollen analysis and georadar. The fourth theme for NTAA’s annual seminar was Cultural Relict Plants and was held on Bornholm, Denmark, 2013. The focus on the seminar was on research and conservation of cultural relict plants, that is cultural plants which have survived in the same place for a long time after the actual cultivation has ceased. We dedicate this report to Kjell Lundquist (1955-2011) who were one of the initiators to this network and we hope it will inspire continuous research and new methodological discussions. (shrink)

The Internet-of-Things (IoT) is gradually being established as the new computing paradigm, which is bound to change the ways of our everyday working and living. IoT emphasizes the interconnection of virtually all types of physical objects (e.g., cell phones, wearables, smart meters, sensors, coffee machines and more) towards enabling them to exchange data and services among themselves, while also interacting with humans as well. Few years following the introduction of the IoT concept, significant hype was generated as a result of (...) the proliferating number of IoT-enabled devices, which (according to many projections) are expected to amount to several billion in the next years. During recent years, this hype has been turning to reality, as a wave of IoT applications with significant social and economic has been emerging. Data analytics is the process of deriving knowledge from data, generating value like actionable insights from them. This article reviews work in the IoT and big data analytics from the perspective of their utility in creating efficient, effective and innovative applications and services for a wide spectrum of domains. We review the broad vision for the IoT as it is shaped in various communities, examine the application of data analytics across IoT domains, provide a categorization of analytic approaches and propose a layered taxonomy from IoT data to analytics. IoT data analysis is an integral element of any non- trivial IoT system. Nevertheless, IoT analytics are still in their infancy, as IoT data still remain largely unexploited. (shrink)

This book concerns the foundations of epistemic modality and hyperintensionality and their applications to the philosophy of mathematics. I examine the nature of epistemic modality, when the modal operator is interpreted as concerning both apriority and conceivability, as well as states of knowledge and belief. The book demonstrates how epistemic modality and hyperintensionality relate to the computational theory of mind; metaphysical modality and hyperintensionality; the types of mathematical modality and hyperintensionality; to the epistemic status of large cardinal axioms, undecidable (...) propositions, and abstraction principles in the philosophy of mathematics; to the modal and hyperintensional profiles of the logic of rational intuition; and to the types of intention, when the latter is interpreted as a hyperintensional mental state. Chapter 2 argues for a novel type of expressivism based on the duality between the categories of coalgebras and algebras, and argues that the duality permits of the reconciliation between modal cognitivism and modal expressivism. I also develop a novel topic-sensitive truthmaker semantics for dynamic epistemic logic, and develop a novel dynamic epistemic two-dimensional hyperintensional semantics. Chapter 3 provides an abstraction principle for epistemic (hyper-)intensions. Chapter 4 advances a topic-sensitive two-dimensional truthmaker semantics, and provides three novel interpretations of the framework along with the epistemic and metasemantic. Chapter 5 applies the fixed points of the modal μ-calculus in order to account for the iteration of epistemic states in a single agent, by contrast to availing of modal axiom 4 (i.e. the KK principle). The fixed point operators in the modal μ-calculus are rendered hyperintensional, which yields the first hyperintensional construal of the modal μ-calculus in the literature and the first application of the calculus to the iteration of epistemic states in a single agent instead of the common knowledge of a group of agents. Chapter 6 advances a solution to the Julius Caesar problem based on Fine's `criterial' identity conditions which incorporate conditions on essentiality and grounding. Chapter 7 provides a ground-theoretic regimentation of the proposals in the metaphysics of consciousness and examines its bearing on the two-dimensional conceivability argument against physicalism. The topic-sensitive epistemic two-dimensional truthmaker semantics developed in chapters 2 and 4 are availed of in order for epistemic states to be a guide to metaphysical states in the hyperintensional setting. Chapters 8-12 provide cases demonstrating how the two-dimensional hyperintensions of hyperintensional, i.e. topic-sensitive epistemic two-dimensional truthmaker, semantics, solve the access problem in the epistemology of mathematics. Chapter 8 examines the interaction between my hyperintensional semantics and the axioms of epistemic set theory, large cardinal axioms, the Epistemic Church-Turing Thesis, the modal axioms governing the modal profile of Ω-logic, Orey sentences such as the Generalized Continuum Hypothesis, and absolute decidability. These results yield inter alia the first hyperintensional Epistemic Church-Turing Thesis and hyperintensional epistemic set theories in the literature. Chapter 9 examines the modal and hyperintensional commitments of abstractionism, in particular necessitism, and epistemic hyperintensionality, epistemic utility theory, and the epistemology of abstraction. I countenance a hyperintensional semantics for novel epistemic abstractionist modalities. I suggest, too, that observational type theory can be applied to first-order abstraction principles in order to make first-order abstraction principles recursively enumerable, i.e. Turing machine computable, and that the truth of the first-order abstraction principle for hyperintensions is grounded in its being possibly recursively enumerable and the machine being physically implementable. Chapter 10 examines the philosophical significance of hyperintensional Ω-logic in set theory and discusses the hyperintensionality of metamathematics. Chapter 11 provides a modal logic for rational intuition and provides a hyperintensional semantics. Chapter 12 avails of modal coalgebras to interpret the defining properties of indefinite extensibility, and avails of hyperintensional epistemic two-dimensional semantics in order to account for the interaction between the interpretational and objective modalities and truthmakers thereof. This yields the first hyperintensional category theory in the literature. I invent a new mathematical trick in which first order structures are treated as categories, and Vopenka's principle can be satisfied because of the elementary embeddings between the categories and generate Vopenka cardinals while bypassing the category of Set in category theory. Chapter 13 examines modal responses to the alethic paradoxes. Chapter 14 examines, finally, the modal and hyperintensional semantics for the different types of intention and the relation of the latter to evidential decision theory. (shrink)

The Sleeping Beauty puzzle provides a nice illustration of the approach to self-locating belief defended by Robert Stalnaker in Our Knowledge of the Internal World (Stalnaker, 2008), as well as a test of the utility of that method. The setup of the Sleeping Beauty puzzle is by now fairly familiar. On Sunday Sleeping Beauty is told the rules of the game, and a (known to be) fair coin is flipped. On Monday, Sleeping Beauty is woken, and then put (...) back to sleep. If, and only if, the coin landed tails, she is woken again on Tuesday after having her memory of the Monday awakening erased.1 On Wednesday she is woken again and the game ends. There are a few questions we can ask about Beauty’s attitudes as the game progresses. We’d like to know what her credence that the coin landed heads should be (a) Before she goes to sleep Sunday; (b) When she wakes on Monday; (c) When she wakes on Tuesday; and (d) When she wakes on Wednesday? Standard treatments of the Sleeping Beauty puzzle ignore (d), run together (b) and (c) into one (somewhat ill-formed) question, and then divide theorists into ‘halfers’ or ‘thirders’ depending on how they answer it. Following Stalnaker, I’m going to focus on (b) here, though I’ll have a little to say about (c) and (d) as well. I’ll be following orthodoxy in taking 1 2 to be the clear answer to (a), and in taking the correct answers to (b) and (c) to be independent of how the coin lands, though I’ll briefly question that assumption at the end. An answer to these four questions should respect two different kinds of constraints. The answer for day n should make sense ‘statically’. It should be a sensible answer to the question of what Beauty should do given what information she then has. And the answer should make sense ‘dynamically’. It should be a sensible answer to the question of how Beauty should have updated her credences from some earlier day, given rational credences on the earlier day. As has been fairly clear since the discussion of the problem in Elga (2000), Sleeping Beauty is puzzling because static and dynamic considerations appear to push in different directions.. (shrink)

The Discourse of Universalism , Moral Relativism & Utilitarianism Table of Contents: Chapter 1. Moral relativism: history and theory of moral relativism: Ancient Greece and Early Modern Era Chapter 2. Universalism and Relativism Chapter 3. Hume's Universalism Chapter 4. Plato's Universalism Chapter 5. Problems with Rawls Theory Chapter 6. Aristotle's Relativism Chapter 7. Is Aristotle an ethical relativist? Chapter 8. John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism Chapter 9. Mill and Principle of Utility Chapter 10. Kant and Moral Theory The historian Herodotus (...) gives the anecdote of Darius, King of Persia, who summoned the Greeks and asked them if they would be willing to eat the bodies of their dead fathers. They replied they would not for any money in the world. Later, Darius asked some Indians of the tribe called Callatiae, who do eat their dead parents’ bodies, if they would ever consider burning the bodies, as was the custom among Greeks. “One can see by this what custom can do” writes Herodotus. He draws the conclusion that this story vindicates the view some acts may be right for some and wrong for others, depending on their individual conceptions of morality. The Sophists were also associated with relativistic thinking, notably Protagoras who asserts that “man is the measure of all things”. However, this view was quite uncommon and moral relativism hardly flourished, as Plato and Aristotle both defended forms of moral absolutism. Ancient Greek philosophers acknowledged moral diversity, but more often under the form of moral scepticism, which states that there is no moral knowledge (rather than moral truth is relative to a culture). (shrink)

We investigated whether mathematicians typically agree about the qualities of mathematical proofs. Between-mathematician consensus in proof appraisals is an implicit assumption of many arguments made by philosophers of mathematics, but to our knowledge the issue has not previously been empirically investigated. We asked a group of mathematicians to assess a specific proof on four dimensions, using the framework identified by Inglis and Aberdein (2015). We found widespread disagreement between our participants about the aesthetics, intricacy, precision and utility of (...) the proof, suggesting that a priori assumptions about the consistency of mathematical proof appraisals are unreasonable. (shrink)

“Structuralism, Fictionalism, and the Applicability of Mathematics in Science”. This article has two objectives. The first one is to review some of the most important questions in the contemporary philosophy of mathematics: What is the nature of mathematical objects? How do we acquire knowledge about these objects? Should mathematical statements be interpreted differently than ordinary ones? And, finally, how can we explain the applicability of mathematics in science? The debate that guides these reflections is the one between mathematical realism (...) and anti-realism. On the other hand, the second objective is to discuss the arguments that use the applicability of mathematics in science to justify mathematical realism, and show that none of them reaches its aim. To this end, we will distinguish three aspects of the problem of the applicability of mathematics: the utility of mathematics in science, the unexpected utility of some mathematical theories, and the apparent indispensability of mathematics in our best scientific theories - in particular, in our best scientific explanations. Finally, I argue that none of these aspects constitutes a reason to adopt mathematical realism. (shrink)

DOI:10.20850/9781716645440 -/- An amazing exploration of the mind is now possible for everyone. With the Colors of The Sunrise, the first volume of the series The Psychotherapy of Whole: Aesthetics, Philosophy, Humanism, and Cognitive Science the reader has the opportunity to engage with a book that utilizes the methods and structure of self-help, popular science, and expressive therapies books. -/- Science, psychotherapy, philosophy, music, art and digital reality for the first time come together in a book phenomenon and a series (...) designed during 16 years to provide the first A.I Psychotherapy model internationally, focused on a profound study that has been evaluated by leading names from many of the areas analyzed around the world. -/- The book has been based on the background of advanced academic research, lending from the recent and updated investigations in an extraordinary number of areas. These include but are not limited to the disciplines of social sciences, psychiatry, philosophy, expressive art therapies, exact sciences, history, politics, artificial intelligence, and humanities that are presented from a global perspective. -/- Linguistics, neuroscience, anthropology, robotics, physics, and mathematics reconsidered as positive parts of the universal structures. It is explained the manner of uniting the cognition staying in perfect harmony with the today’s knowledge acquired by cognitive science, and the knowledge that traditionally contributes to the flourishing of the human mind through the philosophical approaches. -/- This manner discovered through the cutting-edge clinical and scientific study of the author. As a Licensed Social Worker and Cognitive Scientist, Anthony N. Skarvelakis devoted many years of professional investigation to reach a cognitive metaprogram as a model that expands human thought, giving the solution searched for years regarding the design of the first complete model of A.I Psychotherapy. (shrink)

Mango is an economically significant fruit crop cultivated in various tropical and subtropical regions around the world. However, the productivity and quality of mangoes can be severely impacted by a range of pests. This research paper introduces an innovative approach to identify mango pests using an expert system. The expert system integrates knowledge from entomology and plants to provide accurate identification of common mango pests. The paper outlines the development and implementation of the expert system using Clips shell, which (...) utilizes rule-based techniques to analyze symptoms associated with mango pests. By inputting observed symptoms, such as leaf spots, fruit damage, leaf mild and stem cankers the system can accurately identify the specific pest species affecting the mango tree. For each pest, the paper discusses their specific symptoms and Favorable conditions that affect the mango plant. By understanding the identification and symptoms of these pests, mango growers and agricultural professionals can implement appropriate pest management strategies to mitigate the economic losses caused by these insects. The research presented in this paper aims to contribute to the body of knowledge on mango pest management, facilitating sustainable mango production and ensuring the availability of high-quality mangoes in global markets. (shrink)

The research has three objectives: 1) to study the concept of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, 2) to study the concept of reality and knowledge in Buddhist philosophy, and 3) to analyze the concept of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle in Buddhist philosophical perspective. This is documentary research. In this research, it was found that Heisenberg's uncertainty principle refers to the experiment of thought while studying physical reality on smaller particles than atoms where at the present no theory of Physics can clearly explain (...) such properties. In this respect, the mentioned principle is utilized to predict the pairs of a certain attribute of physics, position, and momentum, for instance. The accuracy of position, however, cannot be precisely yielded in advance by such a principle. In other words, it is impossible to measure the position and momentum of a quantum particle at the same time. In the study of the ultimate reality on the matter in the Buddhist philosophy, it showed that corporeality in nature is conditioned by cause and effect and thereby falling under the three common characteristics: 1) impermanence, 2) state of suffering, and 3) state of non-substantiality. In the study of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle in the Buddhist philosophical perspective, this research was found that the processes in acquiring certain knowledge of Heisenberg and Buddhist philosophy are by one another in the sense that such knowledge is methodologically acquired through experience, rationality, and intuition because both see the Reality in the same manners, that is, the physical reality is viewed by Heisenberg as the thing that goes under changing state of wave-particle all the times, and the matter is seen by Buddhist philosophy as the impermanence and change depending upon its factors involved and thereby is not-self. However, in the different aspect, on the one hand, Buddhist philosophy utilizes the knowledge on the matter to develop the morality and ethics by which the cessation of suffering could be respectively made, but on the other hand, Heisenberg somehow applies the certain knowledge on physical objects into quantum technology to accommodate the physical comfortability in living life. Suggestions in the application of knowledge gained from this research into benefit were that while Buddhist philosophy can make use of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle to provide certain help at the time of explanation of three common characteristics being done through the scientific method, science also can utilize knowledge gained from Buddhist philosophy to expand the framework of scientific knowledge which is aimed at studying only the physical objects to be able to study the mental objects through the integration of three epistemological methods as well. (shrink)

There is a need recognized by the National Institute of Dental & Craniofacial Research and the National Cancer Institute to advance basic, translational and clinical saliva research. The goal of the Salivaomics Knowledge Base (SKB) is to create a data management system and web resource constructed to support human salivaomics research. To maximize the utility of the SKB for retrieval, integration and analysis of data, we have developed the Saliva Ontology and SDxMart. This article reviews the informatics advances (...) in saliva diagnostics made possible by the Saliva Ontology and SDxMart. (shrink)

We discuss recent progress in the development of cognitive ontologies and summarize three challenges in the coordinated development and application of these resources. Challenge 1 is to adopt a standardized definition for cognitive processes. We describe three possibilities and recommend one that is consistent with the standard view in cognitive and biomedical sciences. Challenge 2 is harmonization. Gaps and conflicts in representation must be resolved so that these resources can be combined for mark-up and interpretation of multi-modal data. Finally, Challenge (...) 3 is to test the utility of these resources for large-scale annotation of data, search and query, and knowledge discovery and integration. As term definitions are tested and revised, harmonization should enable coordinated updates across ontologies. However, the true test of these definitions will be in their community-wide adoption which will test whether they support valid inferences about psychological and neuroscientific data. (shrink)

DOI: 10.1080/00031305.2018.1564697 When the editors of Basic and Applied Social Psychology effectively banned the use of null hypothesis significance testing (NHST) from articles published in their journal, it set off a fire-storm of discussions both supporting the decision and defending the utility of NHST in scientific research. At the heart of NHST is the p-value which is the probability of obtaining an effect equal to or more extreme than the one observed in the sample data, given the null hypothesis (...) and other model assumptions. Although this is conceptually different from the probability of the null hypothesis being true, given the sample, p-values nonetheless can provide evidential information, toward making an inference about a parameter. Applying a 10,000-case simulation described in this article, the authors found that p-values’ inferential signals to either reject or not reject a null hypothesis about the mean (α = 0.05) were consistent for almost 70% of the cases with the parameter’s true location for the sampled-from population. Success increases if a hybrid decision criterion, minimum effect size plus p-value (MESP), is used. Here, rejecting the null also requires the difference of the observed statistic from the exact null to be meaningfully large or practically significant, in the researcher’s judgment and experience. The simulation compares performances of several methods: from p-value and/or effect size-based, to confidence-interval based, under various conditions of true location of the mean, test power, and comparative sizes of the meaningful distance and population variability. For any inference procedure that outputs a binary indicator, like flagging whether a p-value is significant, the output of one single experiment is not sufficient evidence for a definitive conclusion. Yet, if a tool like MESP generates a relatively reliable signal and is used knowledgeably as part of a research process, it can provide useful information. (shrink)

This review aims to identify (1) sources of knowledge and (2) important themes of the ethical debate related to surgical alteration of facial features in East Asians. This article integrates narrative and systematic review methods. In March 2014, we searched databases including PubMed, Philosopher’s Index, Web of Science, Sociological Abstracts, and Communication Abstracts using key terms “cosmetic surgery,” “ethnic*,” “ethics,” “Asia*,” and “Western*.” The study included all types of papers written in English that discuss the debate on rhinoplasty and (...) blepharoplasty in East Asians. No limit was put on date of publication. Combining both narrative and systematic review methods, a total of 31 articles were critically appraised on their contribution to ethical reflection founded on the debates regarding the surgical alteration of Asian features. Sources of knowledge were drawn from four main disciplines, including the humanities, medicine or surgery, communications, and economics. Focusing on cosmetic surgery perceived as a westernising practice, the key debate themes included authenticity of identity, interpersonal relationships and socio-economic utility in the context of Asian culture. The study shows how cosmetic surgery of ethnic features plays an important role in understanding female identity in the Asian context. Based on the debate themes authenticity of identity, interpersonal relationships, and socio-economic utility, this article argues that identity should be understood as less individualistic and more as relational and transformational in the Asian context. In addition, this article also proposes to consider cosmetic surgery of Asian features as an interplay of cultural imperialism and cultural nationalism, which can both be a source of social pressure to modify one’s appearance. (shrink)

Fragments of Aristotle’s lost Protrepticus seem to offer inconsistent arguments for the value of contemplation (one argument appealing to contemplation's uselessness, the other appealing to its utility). In this paper, I argue that these arguments are mutually consistent. Further, I argue that, contrary to first appearances, Aristotle has resources in the Protrepticus for explaining how contemplation, even if it has divine objects, can nevertheless be useful in the way in which he claims, viz., for providing cognitive access to boundary (...) markers (horoi) of the human good. (shrink)

We discuss recent progress in the development of cognitive ontologies and summarize three challenges in the coordinated development and application of these resources. Challenge 1 is to adopt a standardized definition for cognitive processes. We describe three possibilities and recommend one that is consistent with the standard view in cognitive and biomedical sciences. Challenge 2 is harmonization. Gaps and conflicts in representation must be resolved so that these resources can be combined for mark-up and interpretation of multi-modal data. Finally, Challenge (...) 3 is to test the utility of these resources for large-scale annotation of data, search and query, and knowledge discovery and integration. As term definitions are tested and revised, harmonization should enable coordinated updates across ontologies. However, the true test of these definitions will be in their community-wide adoption which will test whether they support valid inferences about psychological and neuroscientific data. (shrink)

It is possible and thereby feasible to develop and implement a pragmatic methodology for a preemptive evidentiary system of ‘Paraphysical Jurisprudence’ for mediating the occurrence of massacres. A required comprehensive completion and formalizing of the tools of epistemology (theory of knowledge) already exists and has been tested both ecumenically and scientifically. The evolution of epistemology has followed the historical progression from myth and superstition to logic and reason to empiricism and now finally to the utility of ‘transcendence’ as (...) a tool in knowledge acquisition. An inspiring example from popular culture is illustrated in the 2002 Hollywood film noir “Minority Report” designed by its director to present a ‘plausible future world’ for the year 2054 wherein an elaborate ‘Precrime Unit’ is tested to prevent murder by utilizing a trio of ‘precogs’ bathed in a ‘photonic milk’ able to presciently predetermine impending occurrences of homicide for which the Precrime Police Unit then intervenes to prevent. Disdain for a putative so-called scientific metaphysics by natural philosophers is deeply rooted in modern pragmatic societies; perhaps rightly so as consistency, credibility and lack of a comprehensive theory has been heretofore emphatically lacking. In addition to the major problem of repeatability is the perceived distinction between domains of the physical and so-called ‘spiritual’ as mutually exclusive. In this work a strong case is made for the rigorous viability and near term putative implementation of a system of paraphysical jurisprudence drawing on the utility of a panoply of concepts. The remaining question is when does feasible become practical in the face of a steady increase in the heinous massacre of innocents? (shrink)

In epistemology, the concept of knowledge is of distinctive interest. This fact is also reflected in the discussion of epistemic value, which focuses to a large extend on the value problem of knowledge. This discussion suggests that knowledge has an outstanding value among epistemic standings because its value exceeds the value of its constitutive parts. I will argue that the value of knowledge is not outstanding by presenting epistemic standings of checking, transferring knowledge, and proving (...) in court, whose values exceed the value of knowledge in certain contexts. Moreover, the values of these other epistemic standings do not always rely on the value of knowledge. In terms of value, knowledge is not an outstanding epistemic concept. Hence, in terms of value we cannot find support for the privileged position that knowledge enjoys in epistemology. (shrink)

The study sought to investigate the level of the knowledge possessed by Home Economics lecturers and students on the objectives of Patchwork and Quilting Craft. The design of the study was a descriptive survey. The study was carried out in Colleges of Education in South-East zone of Nigeria. The population of the study comprised of all the Home Economics lecturers and final year students in Colleges of Education. A census sampling approach was used in selecting all the lecturers and (...) students for the study. A researcher-developed questionnaire titled, “Level of knowledge on the Objectives of Patchwork and Quilting Craft Questionnaire” was used for data collection. The instrument was validated by experts in Home Economics and Measurement and Evaluation in Universities and Colleges of Education. The reliability of the instrument was determined using Cronbach’s alpha procedure and an index of 0.84 was obtained. The instrument was administered and collected back by five research assistants. Mean and standard deviation were used for data analysis. Findings show that twenty-four possible specific objectives of teaching patchwork and quilting craft in colleges of education were identified. There was a significant difference at p < 0.05 between the mean ratings of Home Economics lecturers and students on the objectives of teaching patchwork and quilting craft. Based on the findings, it was recommended that lecturers and students of Home Economics should be adequately retrained to gain more knowledge of the objectives of patchwork and quilting craft in colleges of Education. (shrink)

Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) was the first to explain that certain 'traits' were inherited in plants from one generation to the next. These would later become known as genes. Frederich Miescher in 1869 analyzed a substance from the nucleus of cells, which he therefore called nuclein. Further study of nuclein revealed that it contained elements like hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and phosphorous, with a specific ratio of nitrogen to phosphorous. Then in 1878 Albrecht Kossel determined that nuclein contained nucleic acid, from which (...) he isolated five nucleobases (nitrogen compounds now referred to by the letters C, G, A, T, U representing cytosine, guanine, adenine, thymine, and uracil). It was also discovered that ribose, a sugar was present in the nuclein compound. What Miescher had isolated from the cell nucleus was actually what would latter be identified as DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid). C. H. Waddington (1905 - 1975) first proposed the term “epigenetics” in 1942 to describe the region between the gene and the whole organism (phenotype) [3]. Today, what is called the epigenome refers to all the chromosomal modifications, DNA modifications, chromatin protein modifications and their complexes. It is the epigenome that determines both the expression of the genes and their inheritance. R. A. Jorgenson reports [4], "Many of these modifications appear to be “programmable” and to be “read out” to influence chromosomal functions." Nobel laureate Barbara McClintock stated this revolutionary proposal more clearly in her Nobel lecture [5], “to determine the extent of knowledge the cell has of itself, and how it utilizes this knowledge in a ‘thoughtful’ manner when challenged.” In 1960 R. A. Brinks suggested that chromosomes possess a paragenetic function in addition to their genetic function [7]. The physical nature of the paragenetic function is characterized by the variety of forms or states of chromatin that can reside at any genetic locus. While the genetic function is stable, the paragenetic function is labile and programmable in ontogeny. It is this latter function that allows organisms to transfer informational macromolecules (RNA and proteins) in a systematic and regulated manner over what is known as the “RNA information superhighway.” Given this capacity, organisms may be able to store information at numerous genetic loci in the form of paragenetic chromatin states, which can be reprogrammed during ontogeny or environmental stress [8]. This reprogrammable system could operate over the whole organism as a storage device, allowing it to make informed ‘decisions' during growth and development, or in response to the environment. Such processing capacity could be considered a form of ‘intelligence,' which also could be passed on to future generations. The study of the flow of information within and between cells and organisms represents the cutting edge of modern biological research. While physical correlates of cognitive behavior in living organisms are being discovered, it does not spell reduction to such correlates. The electronic activity within the physical components of a radio, for example, may be minutely determined, but ultimately it is not merely the electrical activity that produces the intelligent speech that is heard. Only the intelligent person whose voice is being broadcast through the radio can explain that. Without the broadcaster, the radio would sit silently even though fully functional. An organism without its living agency also appears to be devoid of metabolic activity although all the chemical components are fully present. How to connect life to matter will be the ultimate challenge that has to be met. This will prove to be a philosophical problem we hope to address in the near future. (shrink)

The research has three objectives: 1) to study the concept of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, 2) to study the concept of reality and knowledge in Buddhist philosophy, and 3) to analyze the concept of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle in Buddhist philosophical perspective. This is documentary research. In this research, it was found that Heisenberg's uncertainty principle refers to the experiment of thought while studying physical reality on smaller particles than atoms where at the present no theory of Physics can clearly explain (...) such properties. In this respect, the mentioned principle is utilized to predict the pairs of a certain attribute of physics, position, and momentum, for instance. The accuracy of position, however, cannot be precisely yielded in advance by such a principle. In other words, it is impossible to measure the position and momentum of a quantum particle at the same time. In the study of the ultimate reality on the matter in the Buddhist philosophy, it showed that corporeality in nature is conditioned by cause and effect and thereby falling under the three common characteristics: 1) impermanence, 2) state of suffering, and 3) state of non-substantiality. In the study of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle in the Buddhist philosophical perspective, this research was found that the processes in acquiring certain knowledge of Heisenberg and Buddhist philosophy are by one another in the sense that such knowledge is methodologically acquired through experience, rationality, and intuition because both see the Reality in the same manners, that is, the physical reality is viewed by Heisenberg as the thing that goes under changing state of wave-particle all the times, and the matter is seen by Buddhist philosophy as the impermanence and change depending upon its factors involved and thereby is not-self. However, in the different aspect, on the one hand, Buddhist philosophy utilizes the knowledge on the matter to develop the morality and ethics by which the cessation of suffering could be respectively made, but on the other hand, Heisenberg somehow applies the certain knowledge on physical objects into quantum technology to accommodate the physical comfortability in living life. Suggestions in the application of knowledge gained from this research into benefit were that while Buddhist philosophy can make use of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle to provide certain help at the time of explanation of three common characteristics being done through the scientific method, science also can utilize knowledge gained from Buddhist philosophy to expand the framework of scientific knowledge which is aimed at studying only the physical objects to be able to study the mental objects through the integration of three epistemological methods as well. (shrink)